


Art et métier

by reconditarmonia



Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Canon Era, Class Differences, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-21
Updated: 2013-01-21
Packaged: 2017-11-26 09:43:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/649240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reconditarmonia/pseuds/reconditarmonia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Feuilly and Jean Prouvaire talk about painting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Art et métier

It begins, of course, with good intentions. Feuilly sits in the center of the Corinthe, sketching with a pencil on a borrowed sheet of paper -- practice for tomorrow's work, as he cannot spare the money to replace fan sticks should he make a mistake or the time to sketch the requested new designs on paper under the foreman's eye, and his fingers are less stiff and draw easier in the warmth of the public house than the cold of his flat. It is a loud evening, but his friends give him space to work, buy him a drink since he looks like he needs it.

Afterwards, when M. Hucheloup closes up and Feuilly and Prouvaire walk, arm in arm, along Rue de Rivoli, both on their route home before Prouvaire crosses Pont Marie and Feuilly goes north, Prouvaire brings up Feuilly's drawing. "Forgive me, my friend -- I did not want to intrude on your work. You truly were occupied and I thought it a terrible shame that you should be denied your leisure in the evening, when you work so hard during the day." His voice is sympathetic and he briefly squeezes Feuilly's forearm where it loops through his. "Your art is charming -- when I passed by your table, I was struck by the expression in the faces you drew, even in miniature and in a sketch. Grantaire used to study with Gros, you know. If you wished it, I am sure he could find a gallery where you could display your art -- what you do when you are not working, I mean."

For a moment, Feuilly has no idea what Prouvaire means; Prouvaire takes his silence for ambivalence and continues "Only if you wanted, of course; these things can be so personal, I know."

Feuilly shakes his head. "I don't paint in my time off. I am no artist."

"But your talent, Feuilly," Prouvaire's voice is quizzical, "even I know you think nothing of the work you do on fans, without recognition or appreciation."

"Bahorel would be a fine lawyer but has no inclination that way." Feuilly can see in Prouvaire's face the argument that art is different, uplifting, that it betters civilization, which he holds back, unsure of how to say it without pressuring or offending his working-class friend; can see that it does not occur to the poet that someone who can make art might not want to. "It is not something I am drawn to. And it is...different when it is my living; I get from it no pleasure, only three francs a day. I read to liberate myself; I write to liberate others. I do not call this what I do with my leisure, but what I do, by nature." And this is something Prouvaire can understand; the same passion that unites them all.

At the next meeting, Feuilly does not sketch the members of their group, but Prouvaire does give him a poem that he wrote that night after they took their leave of each other -- a sonnet on love for others.

**Author's Note:**

> \--I'm partly indebted to Marianne's and MmeBahorel's research on fan-making: http://tenlittlebullets.dreamwidth.org/433369.html To what is described there, I'll add that we know Feuilly's job is the painting, from the chapter "Night begins to fall on Grantaire."  
> \--I hope my geography is right; I spent an unnecessary amount of time looking it up and figured I ought to include it.  
> \--I've never written Jean Prouvaire before and had a weirdly difficult time with his dialogue.  
> \--Yeah, this was written about that fanon. Because sometimes it's easier to address that sort of thing through fiction than meta.


End file.
